Zillow ranks Kansas City as top market for first-time homebuyers in 2024

Joseph Hernandez
Nick Wagner/nwagner@kcstar.com

If you’re looking to buy a home for the first time, Kansas City might be one of your top destinations.

An April report by real estate marketplace Zillow listed Kansas City as one of the 10 best markets for first-time home buyers in the United States for 2024. The city ranked ninth on the report.

Majid Ghavami, a ReeceNichols real estate agent who works extensively with first-time home buyers in Kansas City, said the most affordable areas for first-time home buyers right now are Waldo, Midtown and some parts of Johnson County

“We are very affordable for what you get. On both sides of the state line, you have a lot of amenities like great parks,” Ghavami said. “The schools on the Kansas side are a big draw. And we’re not too big of a city, so you’re not dealing with crazy traffic.”

The average cost of a house in the Waldo neighborhood is $220,183, according to Zillow. In midtown Kansas City, the average cost of a house is $259,942

A previous report by Zillow said that home buyers across the country needed to earn more than $106,000 a year to comfortably afford a home. That’s up 80% since 2020, or around $47,000 more than they needed to earn four years ago.

How did Kansas City rank on Zillow’s report?

Zillow used these metrics to determine the best markets for first-time buyers:

  • Rent affordability, which is defined by the share of median household income spent on rent.

  • The share of available inventory on Zillow that the median household can comfortably afford. This means spending no more than 30% of income on the estimated monthly mortgage cost.

  • The ratio of affordable for-sale inventory to renter households.

  • The share of households aged 29-43. More households of similar age means a higher score in Zillow’s ranking.

Here’s how Kansas City fared in those metrics:

  • Affordable listings as a percent of total for-sale inventory: 51%

  • Percentage of median household income spent on rent: 21%

  • Affordable listings to renter household ratio: 2.2 per 100 renters

  • Home buying age households as a share of total households: 27%

St. Louis was ranked the best market for first-time homebuyers on Zillow’s report. Detroit, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Austin, Texas; Pittsburgh, San Antonio and Birmingham, Alabama all ranked above Kansas City.

How much do you need to earn to buy a home in Kansas City?

Kansas Citians need to earn $92,896 to buy a home in the city, according to Zillow’s February report. This is $40,742 more than what residents needed in 2020.

You would need to make a monthly mortgage payment of $1,846 to afford a home in Kansas City, Zillow reported.

If you made that salary, by yourself or with someone else who was buying a home with you, it would take 7.2 years to save for a 10% down payment on a Kansas City home that costs $289,290, which Zillow says is the city’s typical cost for a house.

Here’s the median annual income for residents in the Kansas City area, according to the U.S. Census:

  • Wyandotte County: $57,771

  • Jackson County: $65,169

  • Clay County: $82,264

  • Platte County: $92,543

  • Johnson County: $103,644

The rising income requirements are part of the reason, Zillow said, that 21% of buyers reported co-buying with a friend or relative in 2023.

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